


Plan B Series

by glacis



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-27
Updated: 2010-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:07:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lindsey makes a plan, which doesn't turn out the way he'd hoped.  The dark side of the Thorny Path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plan B Series

Plan B series: His Place in the World, A Slight Change of Plan, and Plan B.

Chapter 1:  His Place in the World

He had them in the palm of his hand. Then that undead do-gooder pain in the ass stepped in, slung her glasses at her like a weapon, and proved to the jury beyond the shadow of a doubt that regardless of what _their_ eyes told them about _her_ eyes, this was not a woman to take lightly. It was a damned miracle and one hell of a tap dance on his part to wring a hung jury out of what could so easily have been another Angel-provoked fiasco.

By the time they got back to the Firm, he still hadn't stopped shaking. Only iron will and sheer terror kept it from showing. When she took his hand and caressed it, his will nearly broke. He couldn't do a thing to stop his eyes from widening. He knew for certain Holland saw the sweat on his upper lip. There wasn't any way he could completely suppress the shiver that went over his spine when she left. It took every ounce of his hard-won composure to look out the window and shake unobtrusively like a leaf.

Then Holland had to go and start talking about choices. Figuring out how the world worked, and what sort of cog he, Lindsey McDonald, was in the big machine. Like he had no idea what the world was like. Bullshit. He'd had his nose rubbed in the dirt that made up the world before he was big enough to know anything, and by the time he'd learned to kick before he was kicked, he'd learned one whole hell of a lot about just how the world worked.

'Til Holland mentioned Brewster's next job.

Everything he thought he'd known, about the world, about himself, tilted and fell over sideways.

Kids.

She was going to kill kids. He was going to make up a damned good horrible background for her to explain why she would. Then he was going to convince a jury that he was right, and she would take his hand again, and take his clothes off with her blind eyes, and make him itch right through to whatever shreds were left of his soul.

He didn't remember leaving the boardroom. Barely was conscious of the drive across town, past the high rise buildings, through to the West Side, all the way to the ocean. He stared at the water as the sun went down, until his own eyes felt seared blind. He tried very hard to think, but his brain, for the first time in his life, betrayed him. Instead of cutting to the heart of the problem and finding the best solution for his own ends, it kept circling back, over and over. Her hand, as it caught the glasses. The smile on her face as she touched him. The death that was her enlightenment.

The kids.

He didn't plan to go to his nemesis, but he had nowhere else to go. It couldn't happen. And if it didn't happen, he was dead. So he had to get out, and he had to make sure it didn't happen. The only man who could help him make sure that both those things happened was the one man on earth who had the least reason to help him.

He'd beg, if he had to. Wouldn't be the first time, although it had been a damned long time. But it would be the highest stakes he'd ever begged for. His life.

And the kids'.

The woman, Chase, and the man, Wesley, had stared at him as if he was some kind of cartoon villain, dropped in from another dimension. They weren't important, and he ignored them. The vampire, though ... Angel was a different story.

Angel closed the door behind his friends, and Lindsey stood very still, listening to the near-silent tread behind him. The vampire asked if Lindsey was afraid that Angel would kill him. He answered, quite truthfully, that he wasn't. Angel wouldn't hurt him. Not yet. Not now.

Knowing the enemy was a solid strategy. Angel's soul came in handy, instead of being the nuisance it usually was.

For such a cold body, it felt like a furnace behind him when Angel stopped and scented him. He heard the air rush in through Angel's nose, felt more than heard the soft rumble of his voice as he spoke of Lindsey's terror. God, yes, of course he was terrified. He was putting his life, his soul on the line here. He tried to tell Angel, tried to pry the words out of himself, spilled more about his wretched childhood to the uncaring vampire than he had to anyone since he'd turned his back on the squalor he'd grown up in and left it behind himself. Permanently.

Angel feigned boredom.

What had Angel ever known of true privation? A rich man's son, then a demon who could take whatever he wanted. Even after he'd been cursed with a soul, he hadn't ever known what it was like to be powerless. To be a child, watching the father he adored try to put a smile on when he was getting spat on. He'd never lost everything, had nothing, wanted anything. He'd never put out his five year old arms and wrapped them around his one year old sister, who should've been burning up with fever, and instead was cold as a stone. He'd rocked her in his arms all night long, until his mother had come in early the next morning and cried out, a soft little scream that stuck in her throat. His daddy'd had to pry his arms away from his little sister. That was the first time he'd ever seen a dead person.

He'd seen a lot of them since. None of them children. If there was any justice in the world ... no, there wasn't, and he knew that. But there was Angel.

By the time he finished talking, he knew that Angel would help him. Angel didn't want her to kill any kids, either.

They made plans, ignoring Chase, roping in Wesley. His heart was in his throat, and something Angel'd said to him about panic teased at the edge of his mind. Did he really want to walk away?

Well, no.

But he couldn't stay, either.

So he'd stick with betrayal, and hope like hell Angel was good enough to get them both out in one piece.

He was preternaturally aware driving away from the run-down building where the vigilante lived. He watched each shadow like a hawk, took a circuitous way home, triple checked security when he did lock himself in. He didn't sleep much. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw his sister's body, only in the pictures painted behind his eyelids, her eyes were white, and she was smiling. There was blood on her lips, and her face was faintly blue. The images of the past combined with the fear of the future kept him awake all night.

The next day at work, he did his damnedest to look his normal laid-back self. He smiled at the guards, tossing them a careless salute. He tried not to jump out of his skin when Lilah startled him in the records basement, even managing to make a joke about not letting the amoebas know the brass could read, or they'd never get anyone to do their research for them. The echo of her footsteps had barely died away before he was moving again.

His fingers were slick with sweat when he hid his identity card for Angel to use. The noise it made as it slapped against the metal sounded like a cannon shot. When he went in to distract the guard watching the security cameras, he was acting the role of his life.

The shaman started to wail about the presence of the vampire and he nearly yelped himself, but he held it in. Flicked the camera off. Covered Angel's trail. Slipped out, easy as could be, almost ready to draw a clear breath when he got the all-clear over his cell phone. Then hell yawned open before his feet.

Mind readers.

He hadn't been exaggerating when he'd told Angel that while other firms had random drug sweeps, Wolfram and Hart had random mind reading sweeps. And his luck was complete shit that one should come down when he had betrayal on his mind and the only thing he could think about was escape. The next several moments were the longest in his life up to that point.

When Holland stalked up to him, and the guard moved behind him, Lindsey swallowed and tried very hard not to think at all. He was dead, and he knew it. Then the unthinkable happened, and Lee started babbling with an inane sense of pride about being head-hunted, and the next thing he knew, there was an explosion next to his left ear and he flinched away instinctively. Not fast enough. A splash of hot blood painted his cheek and jaw, soaking into his collar. For an instant, he thought it was his, thought for certain it had been a diversion and he was the one being targeted, knew without a doubt that the bullet had taken off the back of his head and he was dead.

Except he wasn't.

His knees were shaking, but he was still upright, staring down in numb shock as guards dragged Lee's body out the door. He turned to leave, almost missing the soft-voiced, "Lindsey. Stay a minute," from behind him.

Then he _knew_ it had been a diversion.

The next few minutes were even slower than the eons he'd spent in the line-up. Lilah patted him gently on the shoulder as she left, support or goodbye, he didn't know, and figured she didn't either.

He'd been certain sure Holland was going to kill him. He almost dredged up a smile, almost managed banter, forced his exhausted, confused, and fucking terrified mind around the concept that Holland wasn't going to kill him. Holland was giving him time to think. Holland was going to let him walk out the door.

It took a bit to solidify his muscles, but he managed it. He walked out that door, alright, expecting every second, every footstep, to hear another explosion, this one ending it all.

The door closed behind him with a sound like a sigh.

This time, he drove directly to Angel's offices after a short stop in the men's room to clean the blood off his face. The vampire's eyes went right through him, burning into him, and he managed to take a light tone, although he had no idea where it came from. "Sorry I'm late. I hope I didn't worry you."

"We just thought you were dead," Chase answered him perkily, which seemed perfectly suitable, in a bizarre sort of way.

Not yet, but soon, he thought but didn't say. Then one of them, maybe himself, he was so catawampus by that point he didn't know, pointed out an address. They had no time. Angel headed off to fight Brewer for the children, and he found himself doing the driving, as Wesley and Chase went off in Angel's car to find the children's caretaker. It was a fast, furious, tense drive. The car was nearly silent, and Lindsey concentrated wholly on not crashing into anyone or anything on the way. They were almost there when Angel finally said something. It wasn't what he expected to hear.

"I smell fresh blood." Lindsey jumped, but didn't look away from his intense focus on the street in front of them. "And brains. Not yours, you're still walking."

He grunted, a noncommittal sound, and hoped Angel would let it drop. Then a cold touch against the side of his jaw made him jump. "Jesus! What the hell're you doin'?" As always when he was afraid, his accent thickened, and equally the norm, he hated it. He glanced over and saw Angel delicately licking at a dark smear on the tip of his finger.

"Missed a spot when you were washing up."

Lindsey's stomach nearly revolted. Not from the pensive look as Angel was sucking Lee's blood off his finger, but because of the sharp flash of remembrance of how very near his own death had been. "Yeah. Well. One of the guys got fired today. Literally. I just got too close."

He didn't hear Angel move, but suddenly that not-heat not-cold too-close presence crowded him again, and Angel's breath was soft in his ear. "How close, Lindsey?"

He shuddered. He wanted to turn his head, wanted to look at Angel's face, wanted to spit in it. Wanted to crawl across the seat and disappear into him, wanted to feel safe again as he hadn't felt since he was little. A tiny voice was laughing hysterically someplace deep inside his brain, but he didn't listen. He didn't look.

"We're here." He jerked the car to a stop and nearly fell bolting out of the car, getting away from that closeness. Denying that safety that was just an illusion. Went forward to do the only thing he knew for damned sure had to be done, save the kids from Brewer. The rest could wait until he could think again. Until he could hear something besides his own blood rushing in his ears.

Angel went first, and Lindsey let him, not as if he could stop him. He had no scruples about letting the vampire lead the attack, just as he had no scruples about hitting a woman, especially a woman who was a homicidal freak, and most especially when that woman hit him first. Until the previous day he'd've been pretty certain he had no scruples about anything, but something about murdering children had caught on the one moral he hadn't purged. Once the woman in question started beating the holy crap out of him, he _really_ had no scruples about doing his best to kill her.

Thankfully, Angel was much better at it than he was, since Lindsey found himself tossed around like Raggedy Andy, and about as much help in the fight. At one point he realized he was flying through the air upside down, and he crashed into the wall only to have a couple hundred pounds of randomly flailing vampire tossed down on top of him. He took a huge gulp of air, trying to drag breath into badly bruised lungs, and realized several things at once.

His face was buried under Angel's chin. Angel smelled good.

Angel's arms were holding him against the wall, strictly by accident, and in a futile attempt to keep his weight off Lindsey. Those arms were rock solid. He didn't particularly mind the weight.

He had the gut-deep feeling he had thrown everything away for nothing. She was going to win. They were going to die. The kids were going to die. He was harder than he'd ever been. He wanted her to be dead. He wanted Angel to go on holding him.

Happily for what little was left of his sanity, Angel rebounded back into the attack and took his body away from Lindsey's before they both discovered things about him he'd just as soon neither knew. Then the vampire found a way to kill Brewer with her own sharpened white cane. Lindsey pulled himself over to the children and did something he hadn't done since he was ten.

He reached out and gathered them up in an embrace. He put his body between theirs and the threat before them. They held onto him and he held back. He was muttering something, "It's alright, you're alright," his tongue slick with his own blood, his head ringing, his arms quivering.

Then Angel gathered them all up and shooed them out to the car. When the children were safely in the back seat, he headed shakily for the driver's seat. A strong hand wrapped around his biceps and brought him to a halt, nearly pulling him off his feet at the same time. He looked up, blearily.

"What?" he tried to ask. The word didn't make it out of his throat. A shadow blocked out the moon, a big body moved faster than anything that large had a right to, and he was held again, up against the car. He closed his eyes as Angel kissed him, tongue flicking out to lick the blood from his lips. He started to shake even harder. Guessed he hadn't been quite fast enough to hide it. Didn't know whether to laugh, cry or throw up. Didn't have the chance to do anything but breathe through his nose and stare, wide-eyed, as Angel backed away and stared down at him.

"I'll drive," was all the vampire said. Then he opened the back door, shoved Lindsey in with the kids, and they took off. The children moved closer to him, moths to the flame, and held onto him tightly all the way to their mentor's safe house.

They didn't let go of him until their mentor called out, then they flew away like startled birds. He watched them go, then slipped away himself. As he slid into his car he looked back.

Angel was watching him.

In the little bit of light casting shadows across the vampire's face, Lindsey saw the tip of his tongue come out and lick at the full bottom lip. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew that Angel was tasting him. His blood. His mouth.

He was hard all during the short, fast drive back to Angel Investigations. He downloaded a few select files with machine-like efficiency onto a zip disk then stashed it in a stamped padded envelope and addressed it to the post office box he rented under an assumed name in Calabasas and shuffled it in with the out-going mail. Then he gathered the original disks up and, mind racing with possibilities, headed back to the Firm.

Thoughts were chasing themselves in his head. If he'd had the brain God gave a goat he'd get the hell out of town and mail the disks back instead of heading bare-naked back into the lion's den. But he couldn't leave. He'd known Holland for fourteen years. He really _hadn't_ wanted to betray him, had hated lying to him.

Hadn't had a choice.

He had to talk to Holland. He didn't have the faintest idea what the hell he was going to say. Had even less idea what he was going to hear. There were other things to consider, now. The fallout from his actions in helping save the kids, in going over to the enemy for the rescue operation. Whether there ever was any such thing as 'getting out' from an organization like Wolfram and Hart. Whether he'd ever actually be safe if he did.

Just what Angel had meant when he'd kissed him.

Shaking the last thought off, Lindsey sat in the car and called on every lesson he'd ever learned in a lifetime of putting up a good front. By the time he stood in the doorway of Holland's office, it was as solid as he could make it.

The boxes took him aback.

Holland shifted, his head going up much as if he scented Lindsey on the air before anything was said. Lindsey swallowed, moistened his throat, and spoke his mentor's name.

The following conversation was yet another surreal note in an utterly unreal week. He wasn't killed on the spot. He wasn't threatened, or rounded up and given to the demons as a snack, fresh people-kibble. He wasn't even tossed out on his ass.

He was offered a promotion.

Was that what bucking the trend got a guy? It didn't make any sense.

Holland told him again to think about his place in the world, to look deep into himself and make a decision about where he belonged. Then Holland walked out the door and left it open behind him. If Lindsey stayed it would be his choice, his acknowledgement that his place was with Wolfram and Hart. Where the power was.

Lindsey leaned against the desk, staring at the lighted hallway behind it. Part of him was sure there was a guard waiting to blow the top of his skull off if he actually did try to leave. Much more of him knew there wasn't. Holland meant it. One way or another, it was up to him. Mind chasing itself again, he walked slowly to the double doors. He gently closed the right door, then just as gently closed the left one.

He remained inside the office.

He'd had too many places taken away from him. Been vulnerable and helpless and shat on too many times. He didn't know where he was going from there, but it wasn't back out in the cold.

Not that it wasn't cold enough inside. He walked back over to the desk and ran his hands along the rounded edge. The black marble was cold, as cold as he was feeling in the pit of his stomach. Moving slowly to sit behind the desk, he removed the receiver from the 'phone and put it silently down on the desktop. Then he swiveled in the comfortable black leather chair and looked out over the nightscape of LA.

His town. If he had the balls to take it. He had a place in it, he knew. He wasn't a hundred percent sure what that place was. There were some question marks.

Just before dawn one of those question marks, more urgent than most, urged him back across town. He parked in the alley behind the building and came in the back way, ducking down the stairway before Chase could look up from the computer and spot him.

"You came back." Angel's voice came to him out of the semi-darkness of the inner room, and he paused at the base of the stairs.

"Yeah." He wanted to say something, but he didn't know what. As he always did when he was unsure of himself, he kept his mouth shut and watched. Even with his eyes wide open and glued on the vampire, he missed the move. Next thing he knew, Angel had him pinned against the wall. The position made him think of a bug stuck on a board, and didn't do much for the aches and bruises he'd picked up fighting Brewer. "Ow," he tried experimentally.

Angel kissed him again. Black dots were swimming in front of his eyes when he was finally allowed to drag in a breath. Dimly he heard a question, it sounded like 'why?' but he couldn't tell. Didn't care. The erection he'd been fighting through near death and battle and confrontation all fucking night had caught up with him, and he wasn't hearing anything at all but the demand to do something about it.

So he did.

Wriggling around until he got a hand free, he grabbed Angel by the back of the head and pulled him close. This time it was Lindsey doing the kissing. The pressure of their mouths grinding together reopened the cut on his lip, and the rasp of Angel's tongue licking at the seeping blood made him moan. Angel caught the sound and swallowed it, too.

It was quiet in the room. Quiet and dark. He'd not have known it was daylight, in the little nest the vampire had made for himself. There was an intimacy in the dark, in the quiet, the only sounds his own gasping breath, the rustle of cloth as Angel stripped him, as he stripped Angel in turn.

The last person he'd fucked had been an actress, a nobody, no threat and no risk. Angel was both, the enemy and the embodiment of betrayal. Lindsey touched him, knowing nothing but that he had to, his hands tracing cold skin like satin over marble, outlining tensed muscles, the sweep of Angel's back, the curve of his ass, the length of his throat. Angel did the same, hands hard but not hurting, urging Lindsey's legs apart, winding around Lindsey's waist, one hand up into his hair, one hand working at his groin.

Angel's hands didn't shake.

Lindsey's did.

The first time Angel made him come right there, shoved up against the wall, shuddering and convulsing in arms that held him solidly as stone. He buried his face in Angel's neck and screamed silently, or as silently as he could, biting at the soft skin, tonguing it and wondering at the lack of sweat. His world had narrowed to the hand holding his hip and the hand between his shoulder blades and the neck under his mouth and the chest that didn't move against his. By the time he got his breath back, they were in Angel's bed and Angel was in him.

He was on his belly, Angel curled around behind him, those strong arms banded around his chest now, his face buried in the bedspread. His entire body was on fire except for his ass, and Angel felt like a different kind of fire there, a cold fire, incredible cold opening him up. Owning him.

Ephemeral.

No one owned him.

Lindsey bucked back against Angel, and the vampire growled, a warning or a sign of pleasure, he couldn't tell. Then he was on his knees, slamming back almost as hard as Angel was slamming forward, and the ownership went both ways. He was taking as much as taken, growling as fiercely as Angel did, grunting and shaking, all his weight thrown forward onto his straightened arms with their locked elbows, his head hanging down, hair in his eyes and blood dripping off his chin. His second orgasm hit him unexpectedly, and he howled, the sound stifled by Angel's fingers suddenly in his mouth.

Angel stiffened and whipped hard against him, and Lindsey bit down on Angel's hand. He was licking it and sucking at the fingers unconsciously, and Angel moved them in and out of his mouth, picking up a shadow of the rhythm their bodies had made. Then Angel was slipping out of him, twisting him around on the bed with one abrupt, inhumanly strong movement. Lindsey found himself cradled underneath the vampire, staring up into yellow eyes, a ridged forehead, and a snarling smile showing sharpened fangs.

He lay completely still, barely breathing. Oddly enough, he wasn't afraid. Angel, or Angelus, or whoever the hell it was holding him, laughed softly.

"It ain't perfect bliss, but I'll take what I can get." The unholy face dove at him, and a single fang raked across his lower lip, widening the cut, then sucking the wounded flesh between sharp teeth, tongue probing and washing it.

Lindsey bucked again, startled by how erotic the pain was. Then the strong sucking eased into a deep kiss, and he opened his mouth to give Angel full access. By the time the kiss ended, Angel was back in human face.

He didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Angel stared down at him. Through him. It was as bad as the mind readers. "Why?" he asked again.

"I had to know," Lindsey answered honestly, although he couldn't tell Angel just what it was he had to know. He wasn't quite sure himself. The vampire stared at him awhile longer, then nodded, probably seeing more than Lindsey wanted him to see. Angel usually did. Damn him.

"Did you make a choice?" The arms around him tightened fractionally.

"Yes." He had. Before Angel could take it any further, Lindsey hooked an arm around Angel's neck and drew himself up to kiss him again. Angel allowed himself to be distracted.

Perhaps he didn't want to know what that choice had been, either.

Five hours later, Lindsey let himself into his new office and walked slowly over to the executive washroom at the side. He looked around as he walked, noting that nothing had been disturbed from that morning. It was waiting for him, if he was going to take it. Turning on the cold water, cupping some to splash on his face, he looked up to meet his own eyes in the mirror.

On the surface, as usual, they showed nothing. In the depths, where the shadows had always been, he saw his place in the world. Not on the right side, or the wrong side. On the winning side. Patting his skin dry, he straightened his tie, walked over to his desk, and put the telephone back on the hook.

 Chapter 2: A Slight Change in Plan

Finding the Oracles slaughtered had been unnerving, even for him. Being a vampire with a soul, an abomination to his own kind, engaged in a quixotic quest for redemption, he'd seen some doozies. Talking with the Spirit of the female Oracle had pretty well topped the list.

Angel knew what he had to do to save his friends, his surrogate family. He tracked his prey to its lair, interrupted a Ritual in progress, and proceeded to play Obi-Wan Kenobi with the Beast in the role of Darth Maul. Somewhere behind him as he kicked and slashed, ducked and parried, a wind kicked up. He was vaguely aware of Lindsey McDonald's voice snarling Latin, and screaming at the goblins to "say it!", when he kicked the Beast into the middle of the Acolytes and left Lindsey to raise hell all on his own.

He was disappointed, but he had no doubts the lawyer could do it.

Flinging himself out of the way of the scythe the Beast swung like a baseball bat, Angel crashed into a group of humans dragging a big wooden box by chains. The humans went over like bowling pins and he grabbed the chains, swinging them up and over to catch the scythe on its downward swing and divert it into the side of the box. He had a brief impression of movement, the echo of a feral howl, and something dove from the box, landing on one of the fallen humans. He didn't have time to check, although the howl sounded oddly familiar.

The haft of the scythe caught him across the top of his right shoulder, numbing his arm down to his fingertips, and the pain combined with an adrenaline rush brought his demon to the fore. Angelus screamed out, left hand curving around the top of the blade where it attached to the handle, and with a vicious sideways yank he buried the tip of the curving blade dead center in the Beast's chest. The metal slid through bone and flesh like they were water, and the body cavity flowered open. The stench nearly knocked him over, and maggots boiled out of the eviscerated torso. The shock jolted him back into human form, and he tumbled over sideways to avoid the mass of the now-dead Beast as its corpse toppled forward.

Panting from exertion, Angel shook his head to clear it, clenching and relaxing his right hand, trying to regain use as soon as possible. Braced for a further fight, he rolled to his feet and crouched, ready for an attack from any quarter. Eyes gold-tinged, nostrils flared, mouth slightly open, he rocked on the balls of his feet and growled out warning.

No attack came.

The humans in the room were either dead, clawing at the door to get out, or unconscious. A smell he recognized caught his attention and he pivoted, looking for the source. Terror. Lindsey's terror, to be specific. A sound like a scream trapped behind clenched teeth accompanied the scent. Scanning the trail of corpses, he saw a slight, fair-skinned female vampire land on Lindsey, bearing him to the ground as the mortal was reaching out for the Scroll.

Ah, good. Two birds, one stake.

Launching himself forward, Angel triggered the sheath along his left forearm and threw himself at the female. In one fluid move, he staked the vampire from behind, dusting her with a spare inch between the sharpened end of the stake and Lindsey's breastbone, and scooped up the Scroll with his right hand, thankful he had enough strength left to grip it. As the female disintegrated he felt a tearing sensation in his own chest, and Angelus shook inside him, nearly breaking Angel's iron control.

"Darla!" he screamed, unable to hold it back. The loss of his sire, twice, by his own hand, scorched him, and he found himself curled over the remains of her dust, scattered over Lindsey's startled face. For an instant, he howled, a short, uncontrollable burst of grief, then he pulled himself off Lindsey and ran shakily for the door. An older man got in his way, and he threw the unfortunate human halfway across the room in his urgency to escape.

He had the Scroll.

No one need know the price he had paid to get it.

Except, perhaps, Lindsey. Who knew what he'd seen in Angel's eyes?

Ignoring the thought, he made his way to the hospital. He had to get the Scroll to Wesley. Had to heal Cordy. Had to figure out what to do next. Had to forget Darla.

Again.

 

Lindsey held the torn remains of his jacket against the wound along his collarbone, trying to staunch the blood flow, thankful Darla hadn't taken him down at just the right angle to rip his throat out. At least some of his fabled luck was still intact. Not that he'd had much since Angel had shown up on the scene.

He was gonna kill that son of a bitch. He didn't know how, or when. But that was the plan. He was going to find a way to permanently kill that undead do-gooding son of a bitch. He resolutely ignored the fact that the last time he'd taken that particular vow he'd ended up sleeping with the undead do-gooding son of a bitch instead.

Staring across the room to where Holland was shakily getting up with the help of two surviving clerks, he made a rapid reassessment of the state of his luck. Perhaps he'd've been better off if she _had_ been able to kill him. After this latest interference by Angel, death would be a bonus compared to what the senior partners could do to him.

Taking a deep breath, a little light headed from blood loss and feeling gritty from the Darla-dust scattered all over him, he pushed himself to his feet and went to meet his fate. Holland was looking pretty pale himself.

More than a little pissed off, too.

"I'm sorry, Holland," he got out before his mentor could begin to castigate him. It wasn't his fault, necessarily. Although he'd gotten a weird feeling as they'd left the Firm, and he probably should have said something at the time. But he hadn't known it was Angel. And he surely hadn't known the crusader would crash the party and fuck up the Raising.

Had he?

Putting that thought away, to take out and examine at a less dangerous time, he held out a hand to help steady Holland. The older man glared at him.

"My office, nine a.m." Holland ignored the hand and turned, with some difficulty, to walk away. Lindsey knew better than to offer again. "Go get yourself patched up," Holland threw over his shoulder. "You're going to need your strength."

Lindsey swallowed dryly. That wasn't encouraging. Although he hadn't been killed immediately, which _was_ encouraging. A delicate pat to his unmangled shoulder by Lilah, and he nodded shortly. Wrong move. The world spun, and everything went black.

When the lights came back on again he was in the in-house infirmary at the Firm. Doctor Preston was taping gauze over his shoulder and onto his chest, and he felt pleasantly numb. An ache in the back of his right hand drew his eye, and he saw the nurse remove a canula, attached to a tube from a now-empty bag of blood.

"How many pints?" he asked, mildly annoyed at the weakness in his voice.

"Three units," the doctor answered, no surprise anywhere to be seen on him. Then again, triage after a demon sortie wasn't an unusual occurrence at Wolfram and Hart.

"How many casualties?" Not that he cared, particularly, but one of the clerks Darla had eaten had been assigned to him, and the man hadn't been as stone stupid as most of the underlings he got stuck with. Now he had to break in a new one.

If he wasn't too busy being broken, himself, of course. The thought distracted him, and he muttered a token, "Hm," when the doctor gave him the stats. Only five down, not bad for a Ritual as badly botched as this one had been. He went to rise, and the doctor pressed him back down again.

"You're not going anywhere. Overnight stay, so we can keep an eye on you."

Unspoken, but understood by everyone in the room, was the rider "so you can't run." Lindsey sighed. An understandable precaution, given his previous behavior in the Brewer case. But it didn't help the fact that he hated hospital beds. He'd be in no shape to face whatever Holland and the senior partners were going to throw at him in the morning if he got no sleep all night. Briefly, he considered asking for a sleeping pill, then decided against it. After all, there was no way on God's green earth he was going to walk out of the Firm a second time. If he was going to live through the next twenty four hours, he had to have a plan.

He had all night to think of one.

It was a very long night, or so he thought until it was over.

Morning came too damned early.

 

Night passed too quickly. He'd thanked Gunn sincerely, and sent the young man home with his men and women to get some rest. Cordelia was coherent again, exhausted and distraught but no longer locked in her own mental hell. Wesley was recovering nicely, bouncing back with a resilience that surprised Angel. He left them in hospital, admonishing them to listen to their doctors and get some rest, then trailed home through the tunnels as dawn was breaking over the city.

It had been a hell of a night, in a series of hellish nights. As he collapsed onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling, he finally allowed himself to remember the details of the fight. The scythe, the cyclone wind, Lindsey's chanting, the dead humans sacrificed to Wolfram and Hart's schemes, the maggots pouring from the belly of the Beast.

Darla.

Slaying his sire ... again. Feeling the beginning of the bond, wrenched apart, stillborn by his own hand. The shock on Lindsey's face. The pain contorting his own. The silken feel of the dust of his progenitor coating his hand, his face, settling into the creases of his clothing. The heat of Lindsey's body burning into his own. The smell of his terror. The scent of his blood.

Dimly, he could feel Angelus raging. If the demon escaped, truly escaped, there would be Hell on Earth for those who had done this, had brought her forth only to cause him to kill her again.

Twice damned.

He rolled over onto his side, eyes staring blindly, lost in sense-memory. Ireland, Poland, Romania, death and life and joy and no regret in any of it, until it was over. Doomed to live in memory for as long as he remained, doomed to repeat if ever he escaped that memory.

Doomed to love the people he could never have, should never want.

Thrice damned.

Settling into his memories, he gathered the darkness around him and let himself sink. It was better to remember the past than to think of the future. His future was the present, fighting to redeem the unredeemable, save the lost.

Always damned.

 

Lindsey sat in a comfortable leather chair at the end of a long table in a conference room he'd never seen before. He never wanted to see it again, either. He was the only one in the room.

The walls moved.

More precisely, they writhed. Barely seen at the edge of his field of vision, never directly, they bled, too. It was unnerving. He'd seen a lot of things, participated in quite a few of them, and he'd washed blood from his hands up to his elbows. But he'd never been the center of the vast malevolence he served. It made him feel powerless.

Something he'd vowed never to be.

It also made him feel like a loser. Something else he'd vowed never to be. The thought stiffened his spine, and kick-started his brain. There'd been the outline of a plan teasing at his mind all night, and it was starting to gel. If he could just keep the sheer gut-liquefying terror suppressed long enough to finalize it, he just might have figured a way out of this mess.

Then the walls started to talk.

The sound reverberated inside his head, seeming to surround him, coming at him from all sides at once. His skin crawled and his stomach turned over. His brain felt like it was on fire. His fists clenched and he arched in the chair, holding on to the bare essentials of his composure with everything he had in him. He wouldn't scream. He wouldn't cry. He sure as hell wouldn't wet his pants, no matter how much he felt like he had to.

The cacophony finally muted from the anguished screams of anger and pain to a single trumpeting call, singeing his nerve endings. There were no words, but he understood every emotion plainly. He was a failure. A disappointment. He'd shown promise, but he'd not fulfilled that promise. He'd obtained a shadow, and that shadow had overturned Prophesy. They required a sacrifice.

He would be it. Pain so sublime it would be bliss before he melted like slag under the onslaught. An object lesson of the fruits of failure.

The plan came together with a near audible snap in his mind.

"Bliss!" he yelled. The sounds in his head stilled. The walls froze.

As the pressure began to build again, he clutched at his skull with both hands, physically trying to retain enough mental ability to make them understand. "I can turn him! Angel is our -- my -- nemesis. Angelus would be our strength!"

The walls moved again, and he read a question in the sibilance swelling around him. He licked lips so dry they were cracking, and struggled to make sense.

"Angel can be destroyed by reclaiming Angelus. Angelus can be reclaimed by providing Angel with perfect bliss." The pressure subsided just enough for him to take a deep breath, and when he continued, his voice was calmer. More certain. This would work. It had to work. It was his only chance. "His file shows that he's drawn to lost causes. He saved Faith, the rogue slayer." He winced at the small surge of anger all around him, and hurried on. "He thinks he can save me, thinks he can redeem me. I can play into that. Seduce him." He took another deep breath, and consciously allowed himself to remember sex with Angel, knowing they were reading his mind. "There's an attraction there. I can work with that. Make him fall in love with me. Give him that perfect moment, and destroy his soul."

An image came into his mind then, of Angelus tearing him into bloody pieces.

"I'm willing to risk it." What was the alternative, after all? "Angelus would be an asset to Wolfram and Hart, as much of an asset as Angel is a liability."

The noise swept around him again, high pitched chittering piercing his brain, and this time he couldn't keep the cry of pain back behind his teeth. He curled up into a fetal ball in the chair, knees up to his chest, arms wrapped protectively around his head. Fighting not to whimper, he focused completely on Angel, on revenge, on sex, on anything but the urge to run far and fast.

He wouldn't get ten feet, and he knew it.

An eternity and a near-migraine later, swaying on his feet from the sleepless night, aftermath of the battle and close encounter with the senior partners, Lindsey found himself in his office. He had no memory of getting there. Slumping into his chair, he stared dazedly at his daytimer. The pages rustled with an invisible breeze, and he gulped. The book flipped open to Friday, and a word appeared on the page.

"Bliss."

So much for killing. He'd painted himself into a corner, so there was going to have to be a slight change in the plan. There were no other options, not if he wanted to keep breathing. He didn't know how much time they'd give him, but he had his orders. Swiveling around in his chair, he stared out over the city and wondered how in the hell he was going to pull it off.

 

Angel heard the quaver in Wesley's voice and wholeheartedly agreed. Life. His reward for fighting the good fight, redemption, was to be life. As a human. No more torment. No more eternity.

Death had never sounded so good. Real death, final death, after real life, human life. He smiled, faintly, too overwhelmed to say much. Popping the lid on the plastic container of blood, he absently raised it to his mouth and took a swallow.

Yuck.

Cow was bad enough. Chilled cow was truly disgusting.

Catching his grimace before it could escape, knowing Cordy wouldn't understand, he forced himself to swallow and quirked a reassuring half-smile at his friends. Cordy beamed back, and Wesley smiled more sedately, but with a gleam in his eye that gave Angel the uncomfortable feeling Wes knew precisely what he was thinking. That thought brought the other side of his mouth up, and he gave them both a small but real smile before heading off into the kitchen to put Cordelia's microwave to good use.

The rest of the week was quiet. Angel thought of thanking the Powers that Be for it, but every time he thought of Them he remembered the Oracles. So he tried not to think too much, tried not to wonder what would happen now. Tried not to dwell either on the darkness behind him or the uncertainty ahead, and took the rare luxury of enjoying the present. On Friday afternoon, he got at least a partial answer to his mental questions.

Cordy had a vision.

As he eased the trembling girl down into a chair, he couldn't help quietly rejoicing that the visionary purgatory the Beast had delivered her into hadn't burned out whatever part of her mind it was that received the visions. He also sent up a quick thanks to whomever might be listening that the Powers that Be hadn't turned their backs to him when he'd failed to protect the Oracles. Wesley brought over Excedrin migraine tablets and a notepad, scribbling clues down as Cordy grumbled them out.

Three miles away he and Wes cornered the pack of Mipok demons, fought and slew them, and got covered from hair to shoe soles in sticky lime green goo. Again. Life was back to as even a keel as it ever got in L.A. Stumbling wearily into the office a little after midnight, they tossed a quarter for who got first shower, and Angel won. For once, he was glad of the toss. Vampiric noses were very sensitive, and the lime goo stank. Badly. It was sheer bliss to scrub the crap off. Wrapping a towel around his hips, he shooed Wesley into the shower stall with a courtly bow. Wes broke land speed records getting under the water.

Hm. It would appear human noses found it as appalling as vampiric noses did.

Angel grinned and stepped out of the towel, shrugging into his robe. It hadn't been a long battle, but it had drained him, and he wasn't completely over his fight with the Beast earlier in the week. Placing a beaker of blood in the microwave, he pushed the button and leaned against the counter, closing his eyes.

A change in the air brought his head up and he opened them again to see Lindsey standing in front of him.

The lawyer didn't look much better than Angel felt. He could see the outline of a bulky bandage along the man's left shoulder, running down over his collarbone. He was pale, green eyes red-rimmed, slumped with exhaustion. Even his hair looked tired.

Before either could say a word, Wesley wandered out from the shower, a towel around his waist and another over his head, rubbing his hair vigorously. Angel watched as Lindsey started, stared back and forth between the wet, naked Wesley and the robed, obviously retired for the evening vampire. For an instant, Angel thought he saw what looked like betrayal in those wide, startled eyes, then a shutter fell down over them, leaving them blank, completely expressionless.

"I'm sorry."

Wesley stopped dead at the sound of Lindsey's voice, pulling the towel from his head and staring at the lawyer. He looked rather like a surprised hedgehog poking his head out of a bush. His mouth opened but nothing came out. Angel could relate to the feeling.

"This is ... a bad time. I'll just go." Lindsey turned to leave. He made it two steps toward the stairs before Angel could shake off his weird paralysis and move. He caught Lindsey by the arm, ignoring the hiss of pain as Lindsey's injuries were jarred by the movement.

"No. Why did you come?"

Behind them in the bedroom, Angel could hear Wesley moving around, the rustle of cloth as he dressed, the thump of shoes and slap of wet toweling on the floor. All the noises were incidental to the sound of Lindsey breathing. His heart beating. He sounded trapped.

Funny thing. Angel could relate to that, too.

Hesitant footfalls paused behind them.

"Would you like me to stay?" Wesley's question was only the first layer. Do you need back-up? Should I break out the sword or the crossbow or just hand you a cudgel to beat him to death? Should I let you have him or may I kill him myself? Such support, all unspoken. Angel grinned. It wasn't a pleasant expression.

"No. Thanks, Wes. Go home." I can handle it. Him. I want to handle him.

There was too much truth in that thought for the smile to remain. It slipped, leaving him staring as wide-eyed at Lindsey as Lindsey was staring wide-eyed at him.

Clearing his throat, Lindsey finally forced some words out, just when the silence was becoming oppressive. "You okay?" The southern accent was pronounced, and Angel could tell by the slight flush in Lindsey's pale cheeks that he heard it and was discomfited by it.

"Why are you here?" The heat was seductive, and Angel shoved Lindsey away from him before he could give into temptation.

Lindsey shrugged gingerly, settling the suit jacket back in place over his shoulders. His slight grimace of pain was quickly hidden. He didn't answer, choosing instead to wander further into the room. He picked up the short sword Wes had used that night against the Mipoks, sniffing curiously at the layer of goo along the edge. His nose wrinkled.

God help me, Angel thought. He's cute. He's amoral, vicious as a cornered wildcat, too damned smart for his own good and stupid as a plank when it comes to seeing where his plans were leading him. He's running down the road to hell of his own accord, refusing to be turned from his path, and taking everyone and everything he can along with him for the ride. And I want him.

Anger burst through the confusion in his thoughts, and he found himself leaning over Lindsey, pushing him onto the sofa, knocking the sword from his hand to the carpet, growling down into his face.

"What do you **want**, Lindsey? You said you wanted out, then you **chose** to go back. You took over the bloody spell to raise my Sire, then forced me to kill her again to save your miserable life. You want to win! Well, fine! Go back! Leave! What the hell are you **doing** here?"

"I want you."

The whisper cut across his tirade, robbing him of momentum, taking his breath. He stared down into those unblinking eyes, trying to read the lies there, seeing nothing but shadows.

And truth.

Lindsey was speaking again, and Angel forced himself out of those shadows long enough to hear what the man had to say. Not that he would believe it. Not that he could.

"Wolfram and Hart is the only thing I've known since I was nineteen years old. They've been my home for fifteen years. My mentor's there, the only person who has ever shown an interest in me, ever put himself out for me. Ever believed in me. I don't agree with everything they do, and sometimes they scare the hell out of me, but I didn't want to leave."

Angel nodded, noting both the past tense in the last sentence and the fact that he'd finally heard Lindsey admit he was scared of something. It was progress, of a sort. "And now?" he prompted.

Lindsey bit his lip and turned his head away slightly, staring off into the distance over Angel's shoulder. He shifted against the cushions, and Angel instinctively moved with him, pressing closer while at the same time moving his weight further down Lindsey's body. This took the pressure off the wounded shoulder. It also ground their pelvises together. Angel growled under his breath and shook off the distraction.

"The Raising was my last chance," Lindsey admitted, still not looking at him. "As you know, it was a fiasco. The Beast was killed, the Raised was killed, hell, half the senior clerks at the Firm got eaten." He finally looked back at Angel, and this time it was easy to read the expression in his eyes. Trepidation. Strong trepidation. "I don't know what new plans they have for me, but I have a feeling my days are numbered. I need a bolt hole for when the time comes to run, and I'm willing to pay for it."

He moved his groin against Angel's, the message unmistakable. Angel snarled at him. "I knew lawyers were whores, I just never knew one who'd be so eager to admit it."

Lindsey surged underneath him, trying to escape, growling back, "Fuck you!" Angel pinned him easily, one hand clamping into the bandages over his collar bone. He could feel the stitches, the hot fevered skin beneath the gauze. Lindsey gasped and fell back against the sofa cushion, not fighting any further.

"If it's not your body you're offering, then what is it?" Angel asked conversationally, ignoring his own growing arousal.

"Information," Lindsey hissed at him. "I want to turn a losing hand into a winning one."

"Is that all this is to you?" Angel couldn't help asking. "A game, to win or lose?"

There was a long silence, and he stared down into Lindsey's face. Expressions chased themselves across the normally stoic features, alarm, uncertainty, resolve. Desire.

"No," he finally admitted. Electricity was practically visible, crackling between them.

"What about this?" Angel prompted him again, pressing his firming erection against Lindsey's. The heat coming from Lindsey's body ratcheted up several degrees, and he could smell the want in the air. Coming from both of them.

"That's between us," Lindsey said very softly, more an exhalation than a whisper.

Angel's eyes flashed yellow as he read the message, loud and clear. He leaned in closer, the heady mix of blood and arousal coming from Lindsey drawing him in. He opened his mouth, set to make him explain, clarify exactly what he meant, when Lindsey hooked an arm around his neck and drew him down into a kiss.

Thought evaporated. Tension that had been building since he'd followed the lawyers to the crypt for the Ritual the night before exploded between them. Open mouthed kisses sucked bruises on pale flesh, needy hands stripped wool and linen and cotton from Lindsey's body, heedless of the pain inflicted, as he drowned in the need washing over him. Lindsey wasn't protesting. On the contrary, his own hands were pulling ruthlessly at Angel's robe, stripping him as efficiently as he was being stripped.

The hands were too distracting, and as soon as shirt and jacket were tossed on the floor Angel pulled Lindsey's wrists behind his waist and looped his thin leather belt around them. Then he pulled Lindsey flat on his back on the sofa and ran his palms from the rounded buttocks to the back of Lindsey's knees. Crouching over him, Angel clamped Lindsey's bent legs against the sides of his ribs, holding them in place with his elbows, leaving his hands free.

Lindsey was whimpering and squirming beneath him, thrusting up against him, his erection slapping against his belly. Angel leaned down and sucked him, once, hard, and the whimper broke into a sharp yelp. Then Angel reared back, spread Lindsey's buttocks with his hands, and thrust home.

The yelp escalated to a scream.

Momentum built, and Angel slammed into Lindsey, rocking them both, jolting the sofa. It was hard and faster than he would have liked, but neither one of them could stop themselves. A tiny stain began to spread through the bandage at Lindsey's collar bone, and the fresh blood from the torn stitches roused Angel to fever pitch.

Loosening his grip on Lindsey's knees, he let the man's legs slip around his waist and leaned in further, his hands going behind Lindsey's back to pull his wrists further down, throwing his shoulders into stark relief. The small stain grew rapidly, and Angel bent over, ripped the bandage off with his teeth, and fastened his mouth over the newly opened wound.

Lindsey screamed again, pain mingled with pleasure, and bucked harder against him. Between their bellies he felt Lindsey's cock spit, and felt his own caught in a vise grip in response to the orgasm. He growled, knowing he was shifting form, unable to stop himself. His fangs bit deeply into the wound his Sire had made as his climax ripped through him, and the circle was complete -- fluid streaming from him, fluid streaming into him, life given and received.

The struggles against him weakened rapidly until Lindsey lay unmoving beneath him. Calling on every reserve of strength he had, Angel reined in the demon, and cautiously extracted his fangs from Lindsey's flesh.

He didn't want to leave. Not the blood, not the ass, not the arms now draped limply over his back, belt dangling uselessly from one wrist. Angelus was shrieking, wanting more. Angel was shaken, too close to losing everything. He forced himself to withdraw from Lindsey's body, slowly and carefully.

Peering intently down at the unconscious man, Angel was relieved to see a faint pulse at his throat. He climbed gingerly off the sofa, lifted Lindsey with care and brought him over to his bed. The warmth was still there, faded but intact. Angel took a deep breath. Slipping Lindsey under the covers, easing the belt from the limp arm and tossing it away, he stared down at the now quietly sleeping man. So fragile, this way. So mortal.

Angel turned away abruptly and headed for the kitchen. When Lindsey woke up he was going to need lots of fluids. Orange juice, water, apple juice, whatever. Angel licked his lips and tasted Lindsey's blood.

So sweet.

He shook his head viciously. Too sweet. Too tempting. Too utterly wrong. Lindsey said he wanted out -- again. He might just mean it this time. But caring for him -- falling in love with him -- would be the second stupidest thing Angel had ever done in his life. He had to make sure it didn't happen.

Again.

 

Lindsey woke late Saturday morning feeling like he'd been plowed by a ten ton freight train. He bit back a groan as he rolled over, careful of the freshly bandaged shoulder that felt like it had been through a meat grinder. His mouth was sore. His ass hurt.

He hadn't felt this content in so long he couldn't remember.

A glass of orange juice appeared in front of his face and he started. "What the hell?"

"Drink it. You need the fluids."

He took the glass from Angel's hand and peered over the rim of it as he drank. The vampire looked haunted.

Good.

"How are you going to swing it?" Angel asked abruptly. Lindsey cocked a brow at him. "The mind readers."

Lindsey grinned. "By the time I get back to the Firm, I'll firmly believe we're makin' love because I'm infiltrating your organization."

"Sex," Angel ground out.

"Huh?" He drained the juice and sat the glass down, licking the last drops from his lips. Angel's eyes followed his every move.

"It's sex. Not love. I don't love you."

Lindsey nodded slowly, then pulled himself out of bed and got dressed in the clothes Angel thrust at him. Not yet, he thought triumphantly, noting how Angel watched him like a hawk the entire time. But soon.

Pausing at the entrance to the tunnels, he looked back over his shoulder at Angel, who was brooding against the wall, watching him leave. There was hunger in the dark eyes.

He smiled. "Later," he said softly. Angel simply nodded. And watched.

Step one. Complete.

 

The next month was strange. Lindsey contacted Angel once a week, and Angel found himself lurking around the Wolfram and Hart offices much more than he probably should. He found himself listening for Lindsey's heartbeat. Shadowing him on the way home.

Watching through the windows as he went to sleep.

Cordy had another vision, and he and Wes had another night of demon hunting. Gunn and his gang kicked up a hornet's nest and he plowed in to help the kids against the vampires. Kate rang him up once and ranted at him. He hung up on her. Wesley ate him out of house and home, and Cordy went shopping.

Lindsey showed up late on a Thursday night and kissed him. He couldn't stay. He'd dropped off a packet of papers, on a client of Wolfram and Hart who was planning to push up the flow of tainted heroin among the street kids, a Pu'tr'ser demon who fed on hallucinations and violence.

Angel killed it. The pipeline was closed before it could even open.

Wesley was cautiously optimistic, seeing the latest activity as an indication that Lindsey meant it when he said he wanted to change. Cordelia summed up her opinion pithily, "When did hell freeze over?" Angel forced himself to be neutral. It was hard, when the only thing he really wanted to do was bury himself in Lindsey again and forget everything. Suspicions, frustration, expectations, disappointment, everything.

The third Saturday night of the month, about eleven, Lindsey knocked on the door from the tunnels. Angel let him in. He barely got his mouth open on a greeting before Lindsey's tongue was filling it.

When they broke apart, not much, but enough for Lindsey to speak, what he said surprised Angel. "Thanks.

"For what?" he managed, distracted by Lindsey's hands on his ass, Lindsey's breath on his throat, Lindsey's warmth in his arms.

"You're the only thing I have left I can depend on," Lindsey told him. Angel had no idea what the man meant by that cryptic remark.

"Are they coming after you?"

"Soon, I have a feeling," Lindsey muttered around a mouthful of Angel's chest through the thin silk shirt he wore. Every nerve in Angel's body sparked at once.

It was unlike any other time they had ever had sex. Time slowed down. Textures, tastes and scents absorbed them, turning their usual frantic rut into a nearly ritualistic dance. Angel was lost in the taste of Lindsey's mouth, the silk slide of Lindsey's hair through his hands. The curve of biceps, the scattering of crisp curls on his chest, the heaviness of his sac, the length of his shin. The fleshy palm of his hand, the hollow at the base of his throat. The sweet strength of his thighs, parted and clenching around him. The strength of the line of his spine, arching below Angel's chest. The nape of his neck. The underside of his wrists. The almost silent moan that escaped when he came.

When it was over, they lay together, wrapped around one another in Angel's bed. He made a move to pull away and Lindsey caught his arms, pulling them back around him. "Stay?"

It was a request with the edge of command behind it. Angel paused, staring at the contrast between his pale, muscled arms and the warmer skin tone of Lindsey's chest. "Why?"

Lindsey stilled. After a long moment, he said softly, "You make me feel safe."

Angel took a deep breath, tightened his arms around Lindsey, and allowed himself to be drawn back into the web being spun around him.

 

Chapter 3: Plan B

The next few weeks were a frenzy of activity, gradually building to a crescendo. Lindsey played every card he knew, always aware that his time was swiftly running out. He seldom showed up at the office any more, concentrating completely on his campaign to win Angelus over to the Firm and destroy Angel forever.

Not that it was a hardship. The sex was incredible, and he didn't have to perform for any stupid juries.

The third time he delivered a stooge into Angel's hands, watched Wesley and Angel slaughter everything that moved with a demon's speed, and returned back to the office for a night of wild sex, something unusual happened. Angel had been fighting harder and harder to keep his demon under control when they fucked, and he was succeeding. It was frustrating. Lindsey decided to try an experiment.

Angel leapt on him and bore him to the bed, tearing his clothes from him in the expected, by now standard manner. Lindsey went completely limp. Angel stilled.

"Linds?" he asked uneasily.

"I'm a little shaken up," Lindsey lied smoothly, giving the vampire as limpid a gaze as he could manage. "Could we, I dunno, take it gentle tonight?"

For a moment, suspicion clouded the clear dark eyes above him, but Lindsey held his face straight. He had been bruised up a bit, no more than usual, and he'd taken a fortuitous slice to the side of his chest, next to his right nipple. The spray of blood drying on his skin, sticking to his shirt, had given him the initial idea. Now he just had to get Angel to run with it. He threw in a slight wriggle, 'accidentally' bumping their erections together, and Angel hissed in a breath.

Yeah. It'd work. The hunger was back, and the yellow was barely banked in those narrowed eyes. Lindsey smiled, keeping the triumph out of his expression and allowing the need to bleed through. Angel reached down and kissed him.

Gently.

Perfect. Precisely what Lindsey was aiming for. Infiltrate, undermine, then implode. What couldn't be taken from the outside could be eaten away from the inside, until the facade collapsed and the ruins were claimed.

He framed Angel's face with his hands, kissing him as tenderly as he'd been kissed. Their tongues played together for some time before Lindsey allowed them to move to the next stage. Hands whispered over skin, skimming clothing from their bodies, relearning lines of muscle and bone. He kissed Angel everywhere he could reach, holding them back, slowing them down.

Building the fire.

By the time he turned over and presented his back to Angel, head down and ass raised, they were both panting and he was sweating freely. Angel growled, a low, choked sound, then parted his flesh and licked him from his balls to the small of his back, over and over. The sensation was driving him insane. He was howling, himself, by that time, smothering the noise in the pillow, chanting silently over and over to himself that this was a _plan_, it was gonna work, it was worth a little slow torture and sensory overload to make it work. With Angel's tongue thrusting over and over inside his body, turning him inside out for fucking forever, it took a lot of chanting to keep him inside his skin.

Then Angel slid, so slowly, so gently, into him, and his entire body convulsed.

Angel rode out the climax, a solid presence inside him, surrounding him, holding him together so he didn't fly to pieces. He collapsed afterward, only to be held in place as Angel began to ride him. Lindsey simply relaxed into the motion and let Angel do whatever he wanted with his body. Nothing he could've done about it anyway. All his bones had melted.

After a few endless hours of slow, deep fucking, or at least what felt like hours, Angel pulled him upright, widening his thighs and seating Lindsey between them, never losing their connection. He groaned as he felt Angel deeper inside him than he'd ever been.

Then Angel moved.

The relentless, measured pace never varied, and Lindsey realized he was hard again, without Angel ever touching his cock. Angel manipulated him as if he weighed nothing, pulling Lindsey up then plunging him down, going so deep Lindsey felt like Angel's cock would go straight through his heart. He was moaning, a low wail barely under his breath, Angel's name, an endless litany of need.

An answering moan, his own name echoed back at him, made the hair at the nape of his neck stand up. His hands drifted back behind him, running restlessly below his own thighs, over Angel's flanks, back up and down again, a mindless caress mimicking the deep stroking that was claiming him. It seemed to last for an eternity, before Angel leaned down, opened his mouth over the tensed muscle where Lindsey's shoulder met his neck, and bit.

Lindsey came for the second time that night. Angel joined him.

They folded over onto their sides, Angel still buried in Lindsey, arms wrapped around his chest, Lindsey's hands clamped tightly over Angel's. Lindsey smiled to himself as he fell into sleep.

If that hadn't done it, nothing would.

 

Angel held on for dear life as he felt his consciousness slipping away. He should have known. Should have run when he had the chance. Should never have let Lindsey slip in under his defenses.

Surely as there he knew there was a hell, he should never have made love to the man.

That's what it had been. Love. Another lost cause, another lover who was perfectly wrong for him. He'd told Lindsey the very first time they'd come together that it hadn't been bliss.

This time, it had been.

Silently, caught deep within himself, unable to stop what was happening, unable even to warn the man sleeping in his arms, Angel subsided into his demon.

Bright yellow eyes blinked into the darkness of the bedroom. A ridged forehead wrinkled further as Angelus grinned. Finally.

Finally.

He growled softly, feeling himself harden, still up to the hilt in Lindsey McDonald's welcoming ass. The lawyer had been so ... sweet, asking for tenderness, asking for a little kindness. Angel always had been such a sucker for that approach.

Too bad for Angel.

Too bad for Lindsey.

He growled a little harder, shifting forward, pulling out a little then slamming back in as hard as he could. Lindsey jerked awake with a startled curse.

Angelus didn't give him time to catch his breath.

Gripping a fistful of hair at the back of Lindsey's head with one hand and clamping the other on one lean hip, Angelus set a punishing pace, fucking every memory of gentleness out of Lindsey's body. To his vague surprise, Lindsey didn't fight him.

If his smell was anything to go by, the man was completely turned on by the unexpected pounding. Angelus smiled, a genuinely happy snarl. Leave it to a lawyer to like it the hard way. After all, the guy'd spent a decade and a half playing suck-ass to some of the nastiest demons in creation. He _had_ to be in to pain.

So Angelus gave him some.

Lindsey came twice more before Angelus allowed him respite, easing off the punishing grip he'd kept on the man's prick and putting his back into the fucking. Even with all the sex they'd had in the last month or so, even as stretched as Lindsey had been from the previous lovemaking, the brutal pace had him bleeding by the time Angelus finished. It felt good. Smelled better. Tasted incredible.

Angelus licked and bit Lindsey from the side of his neck to his ass, tasting semen, sweat, and blood, thoroughly enjoying his snack. He didn't kill him. He didn't see the need for the fun to end so soon. Staring down at the bloody bite marks and bruises scattered over the soft pale skin, he growled happily. "Now, that's what I call a taste sensation!"

He flipped Lindsey over, expecting to see the pretty boy's face twisted up in pain and fear. Well, the pain was there, along with a satiated glow all his own. The fear was missing. Angelus shook his head. He'd have to see what he could do about that.

Before he could begin to break bones, indulge in a little more rape or perhaps start some finely targeted flailing, Lindsey spoke up. His words froze Angelus in place.

"Welcome back, Angelus. It's about time. I have a proposition for you."

He raked a fang down Lindsey's chest, catching the tip of his nipple and slicing it open. The breath caught in Lindsey's throat and a tiny whimper of pain broke free. He was unwillingly impressed when the human fought through the pain, ignoring Angelus suckling blood from the wounded nipple, to continue his offer.

"Wolfram and Hart are intrigued by your past history, and would like to speak with you on matters -- Oh! -- of mutual interest." The last three words were muffled forced out through clenched teeth as Angelus bit the other nipple, making matching seeping wounds for him to suck. He'd always thought Lindsey tasted sweet. Now that no damning soul kept him back from exploring that taste, he was enjoying himself.

He raised his head and stared down at Lindsey for a moment, appreciating how the fine white lines around his mouth made his lips look just that much more appetizing. "Let me think about it," he said in a conversational tone, then dove down to catch Lindsey's balls in his fangs.

Now, _that_ brought a nice, satisfactory scream. The blood from his perineum tasted even sweeter. Concentrated. Lindsey's thighs were tight around his head, and Angelus sucked strongly, thankful not for the first time that vampires didn't have to breathe. When the first rushing flow began to slow, he let the sac fall from his mouth with one last affectionate lick. Then he reached down and twisted the sac hard, squeezing the balls high into the pelvis.

Lindsey fainted.

Angelus smiled. This was going to be fun. But since he was having too much fun with Lindsey to actually kill him yet, the relatively little bit of blood he'd taken had given him the munchies. A sound from the outer office brought his head up.

Chaining Lindsey to the bedpost, he moved silently into the office. Cordelia, dear whining 'stake him in a minute' Cordelia, was glaring at the computer. Angelus glanced at the window, deciding regretfully that he didn't have time to engage in a little game of 'Chasing Chase.' Cordy was too suspicious, and she'd run out into the sunlight where he couldn't get her. No, dear Cordelia was going to have to be fast.

Maybe he could take his time with Wesley.

Cheered by the thought, he was at Cordelia's chair in an instant. He swung it around, smiling happily at her startled, horrified look. Then he dumped her on her back on the desk, knocking the computer off to make room. Breaking her right arm as she reached for the stake by the side of the desk, he basked in her screams as he sank his fangs into her subclavian artery, crunching easily through bone and muscle. She was a little too skinny for his tastes, and she drained much too fast, but it was a nice, final way to get her to shut up.

Stretching as he rose from the corpse, he glanced lazily around the room. He didn't want to leave her lying there. It would tip off Wesley, and ruin his fun. A smile quirked his lip, and he slung the rapidly cooling body over his shoulder. Whistling jauntily, he traipsed down the stairs and past the bedroom, winking at Lindsey, who was awake again and staring at him, this time with a trace more fear in his eyes.

'Bout time.

Opening the back door, he dumped Cordelia's body a few yards down the tunnel. One way or another he'd be leaving this place soon, so carrion on the doorstep didn't bother him. Sauntering back into the bedroom, he looked down at Lindsey, spread out on the bed. The chains looked good on him. A trickle of blood seeped from each swollen nipple, and another pooled under his purpling testicles.

Damn. Good enough to eat.

Angelus moved forward, intent on just that, when Lindsey's husky voice stopped him.

"Have you considered my offer?" The mortal's voice was tight with pain, but completely steady. Angelus cocked his head to the side and looked at him.

Such a pretty mortal. Such a high pain tolerance level. Such a twisted soul, to get off on this much pain.

It was true. Even in the state he was in, bruised, swollen and powerless, he was half hard. Angelus smiled. He'd always known lawyers were kinky. This one was the pinnacle of the profession.

Making up his mind in that instant, he grinned, flashing his dripping fangs, licking away stray drops of Cordelia's lifeblood.

"Sure!"

He leaned down and unlocked Lindsey's wrists, swooping down for a quick, deep kiss, nipping Lindsey's tongue with the edge of his fang and sucking hard on it. Lindsey's yelp was muffled in his mouth. Pulling away, he watched Lindsey put a hand to his mouth, green eyes glaring sparks at him the whole time.

Oh, yeah. This one was going to be a _lot_ of fun.

Angelus tossed the man's clothes to him. "Tell 'em I'll talk to them tomorrow. Right now I have an ex-Watcher to hunt."

Lindsey's eyes widened. Angelus grinned at him. Lindsey dressed very quickly, still buttoning his shirt as he left. He was walking stiffly, a little bent over, his thighs spread as much as he could to ease the discomfort in his balls. Angelus sighed.

So damned pretty.

When the door had closed behind him, Angelus checked the clock, sniffing the air. Wesley should be by any time now. The grin widened. He hadn't had this much fun since he'd snapped Miss Jenny's neck and decorated her body with rose petals for dear Giles. Thinking of Watchers made him hungry, and he perked up at the sound of the door opening.

"Cordelia? Angel?"

Ah, good. Wesley sounded concerned. On guard. It would make the chase all that much more interesting.

He sprang out at the ex-Watcher with just the right degree of speed to make a splashy entrance. It had quite the effect he wanted. Wesley looked confused, concerned ... then scared out of his mind in a defiant sort of way.

"Hi, Wes! Wanna play?" he grinned. The fear swamped the defiance in a heartbeat, a measure of time that was getting shorter by the moment, if Wesley's heart rate was anything to go by.

Wesley turned and dove for the door, sweeping up a stake on the way. Angelus chuckled, a growly sound that goosed Wesley a little into higher gear. The chase was on. Through the dark night, through the alleys and the streets, over the fences and along the deserted thoroughfares of a city that damned well knew better than to be out after dark. Very quickly, Angelus figured out where Wesley was leading him, and laughed delightedly to himself. Better and better.

He took a shortcut and beat Wes to the gang hideout by a hair. Wesley came tearing into the middle of Gunn's little group of lost boys and girls, yelling at the top of his lungs with what was left of his breath that Angelus was on his tail and they had to kill him. Terror and exertion were making the English accent hard enough for Angelus to decipher, and him a good Irish boy. The baby Yanks hadn't a clue. Gunn finally took him by the collar and shook him like a rat.

Timing was everything in life. Angelus' timing was excellent. As always.

While Gunn kept a stranglehold on Wesley, ensuring that no further warning could escape, Angelus descended on the gang like the vengeance of hell encapsulated in a single demon. Three were dead before Gunn even turned around. The look on his fresh young features was delicious, understanding hitting him just as Angelus ripped his throat out. Stakes were flying everywhere, a flame-thrower squirming unattended near the entrance, held in a death grip by the corpse of the girl who'd tried, unsuccessfully, to toast him with it. This had the nice advantage of trapping all the humans within his easy reach.

The chaos was wonderful. Like any finely honed fighting machine, when the head was chopped off, it flew to pieces. Hell, they were staking each other in their eagerness to get to him. He flew into the fray with a joyful howl, falling on the children in clumps, flinging their bodies this way and that. When the last of the life died from the final pair of terrified eyes, he sighed happily and tossed the drained body away.

Now, _that_ was the way to whet his appetite.

Licking his lips, he peered into the corner where Wesley was scrabbling at the wall, trying to literally tunnel his way out. It was endearing, in a moronic sort of way. Although he had to admit, seen from this angle, the ex-Watcher did have something going for him. His ass wasn't bad at all. Not nearly as fine as Lindsey's, a little on the skinny side, but hey, it was there. It was available. His own blood was up, and that wasn't all.

A good bout of carnage always made him horny.

And since Wesley was the only body moving in the place, and he'd always preferred fucking a living body to a dead one when he had the choice, he shrugged and leapt on the man. Wesley gave a satisfying high-pitched squeal as Angelus took him down, a little like a wild pig put down by a spear. Only much more fun to fuck.

He ripped the linen trousers away with one casual swipe, kicking Wesley's feet apart and plunging into him. The searing burn as his prick tore through the fragile skin sang to him, enflaming him further, and he grunted as he pumped harder. Soon enough, the flow of blood around him eased the way, and he settled in for a nice ride. Wesley was still squirming under him, screaming weakly, blubbering and bucking. So much better than a corpse when it came to this part. Besides, corpses were usually already drained, and if they weren't then they were always stagnant. Not at all appetizing.

Bending over Wesley's back, he pulled almost all the way out, leaving just the tip of his prick inside, then struck the man's carotid artery with his fangs at the exact same moment that he pushed all the way back in. The rush of pain and terror in the hot blood was intoxicating, and he gave himself over to it, rutting and sucking at a terrific pace. By the time the body below him stopped moving and the flow of blood down his throat slowed to a trickle, he was completely satiated.

For the moment.

Pulling out, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and carelessly wiping away the blood and other fluids from his prick with Wesley's hair, he tucked himself away and sniffed the air. Dawn wasn't far off. He stepped over Wesley's body and kicked at the corpse holding the flame-thrower. Sometime while he was enjoying Wesley it had run out of fuel, so it wasn't a danger, or in his way. It was just fun to kick the girl's body into the corner. Rather like some of the games he and Darla had played a long time ago, with the peasants in Tuscany. He sighed at the pleasant memories, then made his way down into the tunnels. It had been a long night, and he was in the mood for a nap.

He noticed along the way that the rats had already been at Cordelia, and he smiled at her remains as he walked past. The air was quickly becoming fetid, and he approved. Ah, smelled like home. Shutting the door, and the stench, behind him, he wandered over to the telephone. One last task to take care of before he could indulge in his well-earned rest.

Dialing a number from memory, he told the receptionist to put him through to Wolfram or Hart, or whoever the hell ran the place behind the names. She asked him, quite politely, who was calling, and he chuckled. "Angelus, returning their call." He supposed Lindsey's in-person proposition counted as first contact on their part.

He was put right through. Less than ten minutes later, they had, indeed, come to a mutually profitable agreement. They would get the terror of the vampiric world for certain select jobs requiring a master's delicate touch. He would get his payment.

In advance.

 

Lindsey barely made it to his car before he collapsed. Behind him, he heard the door open to Angel Investigations, and spared a thought for what would soon happen to Wesley.

What had almost happened to him.

His balls felt like they were on fire. His chest, too. Not to mention that his ass felt like it had been flamed with an acetylene torch. True, he'd told his bosses it was worth the risk -- because the alternative was immediate, highly unpleasant death. At least he was still alive.

For now.

Doubts battered at him. Would he be able to control Angelus, now that he'd freed him? More importantly, perhaps, could his employers? Demons on the whole were a self-centered bunch, and Angelus could teach even the worst of them lessons. He reached into his glove compartment and pulled out a prescription bottle, shaking two Percodan into his palm and swallowing them dry. They took the edge off the pain and allowed him to drive back toward the Firm. He had so much to report.

Halfway there, he reconsidered. Angelus would be busy, chasing and feeding, and had told him he'd have an answer tomorrow night. It wouldn't hurt to lie low for the day, heal up a bit, then head into work. From there, he could let Holland know of his success so far, and hope the older man would take over the negotiations from there. Admittedly, there was something exciting about Angelus. But Lindsey wasn't a true masochist, and he'd prefer to avoid pain if there was some way of shifting it onto someone else.

Decision made, he headed for home and fell into bed. Eighteen solid hours of sleep later, he felt much more up to facing the Firm.

It was early evening when he entered the foyer, waving at the guards as he walked past. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the senior guard pick up the house phone. Just as well. Holland would know he was on his way up, and since he was walking -- almost straight -- he'd know the news was good.

The reception he got at the door to his office wasn't quite what he was expecting. Three Tasker demons boxed him in, taking him down before he was able to strike back even once. One piledriver to the chin took him off his feet, and he didn't feel anything else for some time.

When the world swam back into focus, he had a killer headache. And he was cold. He pried his eyes halfway open and took stock.

Not good.

Not good at all.

For one thing, he was stark naked. For another, he was chained to the wall in a bedroom he recognized all too well. For a third ... he wasn't alone.

He could hear voices on the stairs, although he couldn't see them from the angle he was chained. He didn't need to see them to recognize them. The first was his mentor, Holland. Welcoming Angelus to the fold. Expressing his sincere wishes for a long and prosperous association between Angelus and the legal firm of Wolfram and Hart. Asking how Angelus liked the gift basket Wolfram and Hart had sent over.

"I'm sure I'll enjoy it immensely," Angelus replied, sounding inordinately cheerful. It wasn't a tone Lindsey was used to hearing from the usually morose vampire. He glanced around the room, trying to toss the hair out of his face, looking for the gift basket. Knowing his erstwhile employers, it probably had something alive in it. With tasteful little chocolates and maroon silk ribbon on the handle.

Something tickled the side of his wrist, and he looked up at the manacles holding his arms above his head. Woven into the chain at the base of the shackles was a ribbon.

Maroon.

"Son of a bitch ..." he whispered.

On the floor above him, the door closed, and he swallowed with a dry throat as Angelus clattered down the stairs toward him. His face was in human guise, but nothing could hide his true nature, shining out of his eyes. Perversely, he was even more beautiful as a demon than he'd been as a human.

"Hello, gift basket." The bright smile accompanying the words spoke of hunger and the anticipation of sating it. Lindsey shuddered. Angelus moved forward. "I'm **so** glad to see you again. Aren't you glad to see me?"

Lindsey couldn't have spoken if his life depended on it, and it did. This had not been part of the plan. Angelus took his silence as a compliment.

"We're going to have so much fun," he crooned. The shiver that started at Lindsey's spine crawled out to the ends of his hands and feet, until his entire body was shaking. The chains rattled, and Angelus smiled, shifting into his game face and draping himself over Lindsey's naked body. "Lovely music you're making, my dear. I always was partial to chimes."

He was lifted away from the wall and twisted in his chains, shoulders straining as his arms were pulled taut and crossed. Then Angelus smashed him face first into the wall. He saw stars for a moment, dizzy from the concussion, then screamed involuntarily as Angel thrust into him with no warning, no preparation.

The hours that followed were dredged up from Lindsey's darkest nightmares.

He kept waiting to pass out, then praying to pass out, then trying to pass out. It never happened. Angelus alternated fucking and biting him, sucking blood from him until he was on the verge of fainting, then pulling back, licking at the wound, and fucking him slowly until his head cleared. Then he'd slam back into him, ripping away at him, biting back into him at a different spot, sucking until he nearly fainted from the pain, then pulling back to start the cycle all over again.

Angelus' stamina was amazing. Lindsey would have been appropriately impressed if he hadn't been on the receiving end of it.

The last time he'd felt this fear, he'd been sitting in a room with walls that melted and voices that screamed in his head. This time, the walls were solid, and the voice doing the screaming was his own.

He screamed until his voice gave out. Struggled until his strength was gone. Hung from his hands until there was no feeling left in his arms, and every breath was a struggle. When it had gone on so long he was certain he was dead and too deep in the pain to know it, Angelus finally slammed into him and stayed there. He could feel the vampire's pelvis jerking against his buttocks, and thanked a God he knew had forsaken him for the son of a bitch finally reaching his climax.

Cold, strong hands slid up his arms, roughly rubbing the circulation back into them, and he whined at the fire under his skin. That's when he realized that the chains were gone and he was horizontal. Angelus lay over him, rubbing up against him like a giant cat. Lindsey's blood streaked over both their bodies, making patterns like some bizarre tribal war markings, or a demon child gone crazy with the finger-paint.

He was numbly surprised to be alive. He was certain Angelus would have killed him by now. He didn't know he's spoken his thoughts aloud until Angelus answered him.

"Oh, no, darling Lindsey," he laughed, licking at a seeping bite in the delicate skin under Lindsey's right ear. "I won't kill you until I'm bored with you. Did you know Angel loved you? And he knows what I'm doing to you right now. As much as Angel cared for you, as sweet as my revenge is and will continue to be, it'll be a long, long time before you bore me, pet."

To his horror, Lindsey felt renewed hardness pressed against his belly. Angelus parted and lifted his legs with one sweeping movement, and he couldn't hold back the anguished cry as he was penetrated again. Then Angelus sank his fangs into his throat above the Adam's apple, and Lindsey was reacquainted with hell.

For the first time, he began to pray for death.

Not for the last.

finis

 

 


End file.
